Justification of monologue choices - finished
1. How did you select your monologues for both the Shakespeare and Contemporary piece?
for the contemporary monologue i got given a randomly selected monologue to perform in front of my peers, which i was then given feedback on and told what my acting style was and was given feedback which i could use. I then looked through the selection of female monologues that were on the VLE , i saw the monologues from the play road and remember that for my level 2 auditions for actors unit i chose a monologue from road and that i really enjoyed the writing style and the good balance the monologue had between dramatic and naturalistic. I then looked through the female monologues from road and found a selection of two monologues, Hilary's’ monologue and Valerie's’ monologue. I chose to perform Valerie's monologue.(reasoning in question 3)
For my Shakespeare monologue i performed a monologue from Othello in which my tutor and my peers could decide on a couple of Shakespearean plays/characters which would suit my acting style. I got advised to look at either Hermione’s monologue from a winters tale or Phoebe or Roseline’s monologues from as you like. I chose Hermoine’s monologue from act 2 scene 1.
2. How suitable are the monologues for you? Are the pieces close to or away from your type? What is your type and playing age?
i chose the monologues to suit my acting style, so for both my monologues i chose a slightly older character to play, I did this not because of my looks , because i have quite a young look , but because i have quite a mature acting style, i like choosing characters who have had real life experiences that i can empathise with and connect with. As i feel this helps my performances to be more believable. My acting type is an emotional and dramatic one, my main background is in musical theatre so i feel better when i am able to go full out and portray bold emotions in a character. The shakespeare monologue was appropriate for my acting style as she had a lot of depth , however, she was heavily pregnant at the time of the monologue, this made it extremely difficult to judge and interpret her physicaltiy, as she is quite young so you would think she would have quite an energetic movement, but her social status and pregnancy means that she is quite stationary and poised. I found that this conflicted a lot with my natural physicality and so was harder to perform. For my contemporary monologue i feel like it was the perfect fit for my actiong style as Valerie is clearly a lively and firey character so physicaly i could move around and use a lot more tiny details within m physicality. I also sat down at points i feel this worked well with my acting style as it meant that could add light and shade to the physical performance. The character of Valerie was very appropriate for my acting type , as she is so extremely emotional but denies it to herself a lot.
· Why did you choose them over the other monologues?
as previously mentioned i chose my two monologues over ones from ‘as you like it’ and hilarys’ monologue from Road. I liked Hilary’s monologue because of the speech patterns that she used , in the ways that she hesitates and pauses a lot to rethink what she is saying, i feel like i can relate that to my own speech patterns, but i didn’t choose it because i didn’t feel i could relate with the characters experiences, such a the break up of a marriage and the betrayal she experienced is something i haven’t identified with. I don’t think my acting style would fit with the bitterness that her character hows , and although I prefer acting out characters that are older than myself, Hilary is in her fourtys’ so i feel she is little too old for how i cold play her, i would act far too young for her character. I liked Valerie's monologue because of the depth of her character the darker and more mature subject of the monologue, which was about her experiences in an abusive marriage living in poverty, was something i wanted to play because i love playing more mature, deep characters, I chose to perform Valerie's monologue. Eve though Valerie experienced similar things to hilary, she is a lot younger and so portray a lot more passion and emotion in her monologue which i feel connected better with my playing age and acting style. I chose my monologues because of the depth of the characters which would better suit my acting style as i could empathise with them, where as with the other monologues i couldn’t empathise with the characters.
for my Shakespeare piece I chose Hermoine’s monologue from act 2 scene 1 of the winters tale. I loved this monologue, because there was a lot of underlying emotions in her character as well as a strong front that she puts on for her ‘grace’, i loved the idea of playing around with the balancing act of being emotional because of the betrayal she is experiencing but also that power and strength she uses to stay strong. I didn’t choose Pheobes monologue from as you like it because
· Compare and contrast the monologues you decided against to the ones you chose and say why you favoured it. Think about…..
· Hooking your audience
There are moments in which Valeries monologue can be used to connect an audience in places such as the sustained eye contact with the audience at the very end of the piece. This helps to hook the audience as the eye contact shared combined with the final facial expression helps the audience to empathise with the character. Another moment where the audience is hooked is in moments such as ‘look at my hair’ this is a direct address to the audience and helps to keep them engaged with the piece by directly asking them to look at her hair. Hilarys’ monologue is spoken a lot in third person, this hooks the audience by projecting her emotions onto the audience and her various self questions are rhetorical o the audience don’t have to answer but they will still ask themselves the question which helps to keep them engaged with the character an her piece. This is another reason why i hose Valerie’s monologue over Hiarys’ because Hilarys’ piece used a lot of talking in third person which wouldn’t have fit with my acting style as i feel i would’ve confused my self with the complex dialogue.
In my chosen Shakespeare monologue, Hermoine’s from ‘the winters tale’, she is speaking to another character on stage but this also gives the impression of her speaking out to the audience in sections such as ‘measure me, and so the kings will be performed!’ this is as is if she is asking the audience to make their on judgements of her, this keeps them engaged or longer by making them think. Also Hermoine’s whole character is so strong and powerful that he immediately keep the audience hooked with her bold statements such as ‘i am not prone to weeping, as my sex commonly are.’. This made me really want to play this role as i love her strength and power and the way that she commands over a scene which i feel was great to work with when i played her.
· Journey it takes the audition panel on and Emotional range.
the journey that my contemporary monologue will take the audition panel on is a emotional one, as through my physicality and the emotion shown, the panel wil get across that my character is the victim of domestic violence, which n its own is a powerful message. but throughout the course of her speech,the audition panel will be taken on a journey of different emotions. The panel will feel anger at the start when Valerie is rebelling against how bad life has been to he using sarcastic terms such as ‘what a life’, these sarcastic moments will bget the audience to feel anger and bitterness towards her story. towards the middle of the monologue the panel will feel disgust and repulsion at the vulgar an grotesque descriptions Valerie gives the audience of her husband and his alcohol problems ‘ a smelling stench ea and he the captain with his bristles wet through’ this journey that the panel go on is a transition of bitterness to almost comical repulsion and disgust. The next transition in the piece i at the line ‘what am i saying? its madness all this’ this is such a sharp change in the emotional journey that the audition panel would be going on as Valerie stops to consider all the repulsive things she has just said about the man she used to lov an is the father of her children, so in that moment the panel would feel pity for her and and then when she goes on to feel sorry for her husband and herself to the end of the monologue where she gets so distressed as she realises how tapped she is within her emotions, and so the audition panel feel great distress and sadness for her as they have come to empathise with her. The end of the journey finishes with the long sustained loo of pure upset and distress as Valerie ends with the line ‘can we not have before again? can we not....’ This final look out to the panel would immediately make them connect and empathise with Valerie whilst also leaving the monologue on a strong emotional and dramatic ending.
for my shakespeare monologue, the audience/audition panel is taken on a completely different journey as to start off with, Hermoine describes her faith and the strength she finds within that ‘I must be patient until the heavens smile with a look more favourable’. This makes the audience/audition panel feel a lot of respect for her, as she is being accused of adultery and is being betrayed by her own husband , but she is still so strong and graceful about it. As the monologue progresses she starts getting slightly more defensive and almost sarcastic toward the weakness of hr sex at the time ‘ i’m not prone to weeping as my sex commonly are, the want of which vain dew perchance shall dry your pities’. This also means the audition panel feel a bit bitter towards weaker women of the time who cried over nothing. but then by them seeing the contrast between hermione and other women of the time, the audition panel would feel more distress when hermoine then says ‘but i have that honourable greif lodged here that burns worse than tears drown’, as for someone who is usually so strong an poised, she must be really hurting for her to reveal that to the audience. towards the end of the monologue she continues to make the panel feel a huge amount of respect for her and love for her as she says ‘i never wished to see you sorry, now i trust i shall’ this shows how even though she has been treated s badly by her husband, sh still only wishes to see him happy and o regrets that now he will have to feel sorry an guilty for something , this underlying compassion and kindness adds another layer of depth to her character which the panel would be left admiring as she then returns to her poised original strength as she bids her women to leave, this final statement shows the panel that she feels she has already shown too much emotion and now just wishes to be alone. this is a sad way to end the emotional journey as she still remains closed about her feelings and is left still so misjudged.
· Vocal, physical and character techniques.
for the contemporary monologue i needed to use skills such as a very strong use of physical characterisation, as Valarie’s character is lower class ,fiery , young and downtrodden at the same time so being able to show all those layers is very hard. I tried to show this through her different physicality when standing up and sitting down, when she is sat down her posture is a lot more still and firmly closed as she is showing how down trodden and trapped she is whilst also leaning back in a youthful , rebellious manner. When ever she stood up, she opened up her posture slightly to allow small gestures and mannerisms within her physicality such as rubbing her arms for comfort, and she moved around the space a lot more as she was thinking an speaing more freely and letting some of her anxieties and troubles out so it was making her slighltly more confident. At the end of the piece she returns to being sat don but this time she is hunched over as she is distressed about all the time and life she has lost and wasted. This use of physical technique hugely helped to buld the character. Vocally i started the monologue off in a fairly mature ad calm tone to show she was being string and deflecting most of her worries, but as the monologue reached the end where she got a lot more distressed i used a higher pitch and spoke slightly faster to show that she was thinking faster as she was more hysterical and upset. Then in the final sentences i left pauses in between each repetition of ‘ can we not have before again ? can we not..’ as this leaves time for her to think about what she is saying.
For Shakespeare i struggled with the physicality as although she was young she is also pregnant so i tended to try and hold my stomach at points to remind the audience of my characters physical condition specially on lines such as ‘my plight requires it’ this gesture also shows further understanding of the text. vocally i tried to maintain a deep strong yet feminine voice to show my characters strength and poise. However at point such as ‘that burns worse than tears drown’ I tried to show breaks in my voice as she was choking slightly on what she was saying a she struggled to admit her feelings. I then tried to make a dramatic contrast between that emotional tone to returning back to her strong emotionless voice in the line ‘my women come you have leave’.
3) Where could you use the audition pieces? be specific about drama school or Universities that the piece would be suited to.
Universities such as Manchester and Surrey would receive both monologues well in an audition for the BAhons course in acting as they are both straight acting courses and both these monologues are contrasting and both very technically quite difficult so its essential for a straight acting course to sho the standard you can perform at.
the contemporary monologue especially could be good for going to an audition for a place on a BAHons musical theatre course at a university such as Newcastle or Chichester as it is quite melodramatic and for musical theatre it would show off a lot of key acting techniques needed for that genre of performance as it would display to the panel my ability to portray bold emotions.
I feel like especially my Shakespeare monologue would be good for applying to drama schools such as RADA and Central school of speech ad drama, as the panel would be looking for a higher understanding and depth of character, this could be shown through the understanding of Shakespearean language and because of Hermoines physical condition it would be a good piece to show that i had researched and fully taken on my character role. This piece would also be interesting to perform at a drama school audition as it is a less well known Shakespeare piece and so it would stand out from any other audition piece.
4) How do the pieces display style and the skills needed to play a piece of modern or classical theatre? Think about the acting techniques you have used and learnt.
for my classical theatre monologue i learnt essential skills that are needed to accurately portray the style, such as learning about the iambic pentameter in which e learned that in most Shakespearean speeches each line is containing of ten syllables and therefore the rhythm used to speak a classical piece would be altered by that. We also learned how to translate the old language in to words that we could understand. This skill could be carried over to when i next perform a piece of classical theatre.
For our contemporary/modern pieces we leaned a lot of key performance techniques such as placing yourself when performing, i feel that this was a skill i have learned because at the beginning of the process i tended to fidget and also tended to shake a lot due to nerves i would also change weights between each leg, this would be very distracting for my performance. I have now been taught to be relaxed and natural about placing myself before a speech, this is a key technique for modern pieces of theatre, as your physicality should always look natural and be realistic. Another key technique we have learnt is breath control and ho to stagger our breathing and control them to last until the end of the sentance/stanza. Thi technique can be carried over to any aspect of performance as it hlps both to control nerves and to help the speech to sound more natural.
